And I use the term “doctor” lightly.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder under the state’s viable fetus law, authorities said.

Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody Wednesday night and is being held in the Camden County jail, according to police in Elkton, Md. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City and she is in jail in Utah. Each is awaiting an extradition hearing.

The two doctors were indicted by a grand jury after a 16-month investigation, police said.

The investigation began in August 2010 after a botched procedure at Brigham’s Elkton clinic. An 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant had her uterus ruptured and her bowel injured, and rather than call 911, Brigham and Riley drove her to a nearby hospital, where both were uncooperative and Brigham refused to give his name, authorities said.

A search of the clinic after the botched abortion revealed a freezer with 35 late-term fetuses inside, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks, authorities said.

Brigham, 55, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Riley, 46, faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and one conspiracy count.

Sickening.

Via LifeNews:

Planned Parenthood has released its new annual report and the figures show the abortion business continues to make money despite its status as a nonprofit organization — and it receives almost half of its income from taxpayer dollars.

On December 27, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) released its latest Annual Report for 2009-2010. The report indicates PPFA had a total budget of $1.04 billion and an excess of revenue over expenses of 18.5 million dollars — a net profit.

The abortion business reports $513 million in current assets and $570 million in property, equipment and an endowment while showing $184 million in liabilities for buildings and other debts.

The new report also reveals 46 percent of the total PPFA budget comes from taxpayer dollars in the form of government funding. At the same time, just 21 percent of the income the abortion business brings in comes from private donors (it lists 528,000 active donors) while 31 percent of its revenue is derived from abortions “non-government health services revenue.”

Keep reading…

Sadly, it failed to knock any sense into her.

HT: GWP

The economic train wreck rolls on.

(CNN) — In 2008, the youth vote helped sweep Barack Obama into office. Americans 18-29 spread the word on social media, energized fundraising and went to the polls.

In 2012, the youth vote is moving on and throwing those omnipresent “Hope” bumper stickers and t-shirts in garbage bins.

Not because of apathy. Not because another candidate generates more enthusiasm. Not because of his character. Not because they think voting is pointless. The 18-29 vote is up for grabs in 2012 because youth can’t afford cars to put bumper stickers on and those t-shirts are worn out from too many days sitting on the couch unemployed.

The sobering reality: just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs. And earlier this year, Americans’ student loan debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time ever.

Rather than develop a lasting initiative to help young unemployed Americans, the President launched “Greater Together” — a campaign tool that offers community forums rather than jobs. Rather than provide a bailout to those crushed by the burden of educational loans, his student debt relief program was pathetic — only reducing interest rates by a measly 0.5 percent.

Keep reading…

Reality begs to differ.

Via NY Times:

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way.

Unfortunately, in late 2010 and early 2011, politicians and policy makers in much of the Western world believed that they knew better, that we should focus on deficits, not jobs, even though our economies had barely begun to recover from the slump that followed the financial crisis. And by acting on that anti-Keynesian belief, they ended up proving Keynes right all over again.

In declaring Keynesian economics vindicated I am, of course, at odds with conventional wisdom. In Washington, in particular, the failure of the Obama stimulus package to produce an employment boom is generally seen as having proved that government spending can’t create jobs. But those of us who did the math realized, right from the beginning, that the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (more than a third of which, by the way, took the relatively ineffective form of tax cuts) was much too small given the depth of the slump. And we also predicted the resulting political backlash.

So the real test of Keynesian economics hasn’t come from the half-hearted efforts of the U.S. federal government to boost the economy, which were largely offset by cuts at the state and local levels. It has, instead, come from European nations like Greece and Ireland that had to impose savage fiscal austerity as a condition for receiving emergency loans — and have suffered Depression-level economic slumps, with real G.D.P. in both countries down by double digits.

Keep reading…

Or as MSNBC would call this, racism is sweeping the nation!

Via Rasmussen:

Voters right now give the edge to Republicans when asked which political party is likely to win the White House and control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in next November’s elections. Republicans are more confident about their party’s chances than Democrats are, but a lot of voters are undecided.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters think the Republican candidate is most likely to beat President Obama, while 39% expect the incumbent to win reelection. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure.

What a shame.

Via Business Insider

Keith Olbermann, who began his much-publicized tenure at Al Gore’s Current TV this summer is apparently already on the outs with management there.

So much so, he is reportedly being left out of upcoming election coverage specials.

Brian Stelter at the New York Times writes that Olbermann will be notably absent from Current’s upcoming two hours specials on the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

Instead they will be hosted by Cenk Uygur and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm with appearances by Al Gore, who the NYT notes, usually stays behind the scenes at Current.

Keep reading…

Israel doesn’t f*ck around.

(LWJ) — The Israeli Air Force killed the emir of the al Qaeda-linked Jaish al Islam, or Army of Islam, in an airstrike in northern Gaza. The airstrike is the latest by Israel that has targeted al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli fighter-bombers killed Muaman Abu Daf, the leader of the Army of Islam, in a strike in the Zeitoun district in Gaza City today. Hamas, the terror group which runs Gaza, confirmed that Abu Daf was killed in the attack. Five other Palestinians were wounded. Members of the Army of Islam wrapped Abu Daf’s body in the flag flown by al Qaeda in Iraq, Shabaab, and other al Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East.

The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed the strike and said the Air Force “targeted a terrorist squad that was identified moments before firing rockets at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip.”

“A hit was confirmed, thwarting the rocket fire attempt,” the IDF said in a statement released on its website. “The aforementioned squad is responsible for the firing of rockets at Israel in the past number of days.”

Today’s strike that killed Abu Daf is the third by the Israeli Air Force against what the IDF refers to as “Global Jihad-affiliated terrorists,” or Gaza-based groups linked to al Qaeda. On Dec. 27, the Israeli Air Force killed Abdallah Telbani, who was involved in a plot to attack Israel from the Egyptian Sinai as well as with rocket and IED attacks along the Israeli-Gaza border.

Second email today begging for $3.

From: Steve Israel
Subject: Can I say this?
Date: December 30, 2011 11:18:27 AM EST
To: Drew
Reply-To: Nancy Pelosi

Drew —

After all the media hype about the Tea Party, I’d love to say that 500,000 grassroots Democrats stepped up in 2011 to kick Republicans out of Congress in 2012.

But I can’t say that — yet.

I had my team run the numbers, and if we can get 3 more contributions from your local area, I’ll be able to tell Leader Pelosi, the Republicans, the media, and anyone else who’ll listen that half-a-million Americans are fed up with these Tea Party extremists and have joined our campaign to defeat them.

Will you chip in whatever you can — even just $3 — to help us reach an incredible 500,000 contributors before midnight tomorrow’s year-end FEC deadline?

It’s crunch time now: we have just 24 hours left before the year-end FEC deadline hits, when we’re forced to close the books on 2011, and report our numbers. In addition to nearing 500,000 contributors, we’re just $97,019 away from hitting our million dollar Republican Accountability Fund goal.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to step up, this is it. Contribute right now and your gift will be matched 2-to-1, tripling your impact.

I hope you’ll be a part of this.

Rep. Steve Israel
DCCC Chairman

Yet another email begging for $3.

From: Michelle Obama
Subject: I want to be able to say
Date: December 30, 2011 10:55:35 AM EST
To: Drew
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com

Drew —

This holiday has felt a bit like one last long, deep breath before we plunge into 2012.

This time next year, I don’t want us to have any regrets. I want to be able to say we rose to the task, and got it done. We’ve all got some work to do right now.

Over the next 11 months we’ve got an organization to grow, voters to register, and people to get fired up.

I hope you’ll close out this year by donating $3 or more now to help make sure we’re ready for the next one:

https://donate.barackobama.com/No-Regrets

Thank you so much, and happy new year,

Michelle

P.S. — Also, when you donate today, you are automatically entered for a chance to be one of three supporters to have dinner with Barack and me.

Ron Paul seen nodding in approval.

JOE KLEIN: By the way, you know, the reality is that we’re probably not going to be able to stop Iran from getting a bomb, the way, if that’s what they choose to do. And the way we’re going to react to it is the same way we reacted to the Soviet Union. It’s going to be containment and deterrence. That is not an unreasonable policy. The Iranians took a million casualties in the war with Iraq in the 1980s. I mean, I spent time there. And that is one of the most, the foremost facts of life in Iran. Those guys don’t want to go to war again. If they got a bomb it would just be to deter Israel and Pakistan.

Via Newsbusters

The name “Fast and Furious” ring a bell, Eric?

(Politico) — The number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13 percent in 2011 compared with the year before — and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the increase as “a devastating and unacceptable trend” that he blamed on illegal firearms.

The number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty rose to 173 this year, from 153 in 2010, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund announced Wednesday. This year’s figure is 23 percent higher than 122 killed in the line of duty in 2009.

Holder said “too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them,” in explaining the increase.

Not so pious after all.

(Ynet) — Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is worth some $250 million, a Saudi newspaper reported recently, quoting American intelligence officials.

According to the report, the fortune of Nasrallah’s deputy, Sheikh Naim Qassem, and other senior organization members amounts to as much as $2 billion.

The anonymous intelligence sources believe the funds have been deposited in hundreds of bank accounts across the world, including in Europe, using fabricated or fake names.

Two Western sources are quoted as saying that the Hezbollah leaders from time to time channel millions of dollars from their bank accounts or their wives’ bank accounts to senior members of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, who are responsible for transferring money to the Shiite organization from the office of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to the report, Iranian parliament members are aware of this corruption, are unhappy with it but are avoiding discussing it.

(click image for video)

“It’s that old ethnic crap.”

Via RCP:

Chris Matthews fell into a frenzied defense of President Barack Obama after Mitt Romney said he wants an “entitlement society.” Politico’s Charles Mahtesian called Romney was using “dog-whistle politics” because Republicans “know what he is talking about” and “those are words that Republican caucus-goers understand.”

“It really bugs me. Let me tell you why, Perry, this bothers me. Barack Obama, whatever you think of him, did not start at the top. He wasn’t born a Romney. He wasn’t born in the Ivy League crowd. He worked his way up to it. He came from a mixed background, a poor mother raised him to a large extent by his grandparents. He busted hump to get scholarship after scholarship. He worked his way to the head of the Harvard Law Review. And this guy Romney, who was handed everything, has the gall to say to this guy ‘oh, he wants an entitlement.’ What about your fricking entitlements? From the day you were born, buddy. It’s unbelievable. it’s unbelievable,” Chris Matthews said on MSNBC.

Matthews likened Romney’s “entitlement society” phraseology to using the term “welfare queen” in the 1980s. Matthews called Reagan’s position on welfare “ethnic crap.”

“You heard the same stuff from Reagan, by the way. Food stamps to buy booze with. I remember all that old stuff. Its the old ethnic crap. Okay?” Matthews said.

Keep reading…

Will someone please inform Tingles that Romney is a self-made millionaire by founding an extremely successful venture capital firm whereas Obama was handed every opportunity on a silver platter because he’s part of the “protected class.”